


How To Save A Life

by ProPinkist



Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: ...all of my TtS fics are just going to be me fixing the season where it lacked lol, Cass and Eugene's relationship is the best thing ever okay, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, and also wanting at least someone to be upset about the Varian situation because come on, how they go from legit disliking each other to just pretending they do, siblings :'), takes place during the season 1 finale if it wasn't obvious, this is the result of me wanting something with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-12 01:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProPinkist/pseuds/ProPinkist
Summary: Eugene stumbles across Cassandra having a vulnerable moment. Together, they lament the loss of a friend, and hope for the future.





	How To Save A Life

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure I don't need to say this, but this isn't supposed to be Cassandra/Varian or Cassandra/Eugene. Cass and Eugene have such a great sibling relationship in the show; they start off genuinely not liking each other but by the end of the season they just bicker like siblings do and pretend not to like each other even though they really do. :') And, well, I love Cass's friendship with Varian, too, and Rapunzel's, and I was frankly kind of annoyed and saddened that the two of them treat him as nothing but a villain they've never even met before once he's turned and never stop to think about why he became that way, where he's justified, and just show no sadness at all about what's become of him.
> 
> Hopefully both of them feel in-character. >< Enjoy~

“Cassandra, as much as I’d like to say that you being sent away brings me much joy, right now Rapunzel needs—”

Eugene, having slammed open the door to Cassandra’s chambers without much thought to manners, now stopped mid-sentence, finally noticing that she wasn’t paying him a bit of attention, despite the loud noise.

She was standing in front of a mirror on her wall, holding a necklace in place on her chest. It was rather gaudy and unusual, made up of large purple, pink, and blue beads, with the pendant looking like a large shining purple… rock. To say that it didn’t fit with Cassandra’s handmaiden appearance was an understatement, and it _definitely_ wasn’t something she would wear with her casual clothes.

The only thing he knew for sure was that Cassandra’s face didn’t look happy. Eugene couldn’t blame her.

“…Gee, never knew you were the jewelry type, Cass, but I feel like you could have gone with something not quite as flashy to match your personality, haha—"

“Varian gave it to me.”

The silence after she spoke was deafening.

“…………Oh.”

_That… would make more sense. Sort of._

It took him forever to speak the single word, and afterwards, Eugene couldn’t think of anything else to say, standing in the doorway dumbly as the awkward silence reigned on, feeling worse and worse by the moment. Eventually, he heard Cassandra sigh, and he watched her move across the room towards her bed, sitting down next to a bag of what he knew had to be what she was planning to take with her to her new residence. She held the necklace up, staring at it more with a forlorn expression, watching the stone at the bottom catch the light from the hallway, and then she suddenly gazed up at him in despair, sadder than he had ever seen her.

“………How could it have come to this?”

Eugene grimaced slightly, feeling even more terrible. She hadn’t even insulted him back like she normally would have, which told him just how bothered Cassandra was, and as much as he felt like he didn’t completely understand her, and as much as they bantered and had their differences, he didn’t _hate_ her. They had grown more comfortable with each other over time, even though neither of them would ever admit it out loud, and if anything, he knew he could count on her to help Rapunzel, and knew that _she_ knew she could count on him to do the same.

So even though he wasn’t used to having extensive conversations with her that weren’t purely filled with sarcasm, he wasn’t cold enough to keep himself from awkwardly joining her on her bed, leaning on his knees and lacing his fingers together as he sighed.

“…To be honest, I didn’t like him very much from the beginning, what with those crazy machines that almost killed us and everyone else—”

“But he’s a _good kid_ , Eugene!”

“……I know,” Eugene murmured, sighing again. It was true that he hadn’t had the best first impression of Varian, but he knew that some of that was due to his irritation back then about their visit to him having been part of the secret Rapunzel and Cassandra had been keeping, as well as Varian’s obsession with him, or rather, who he thought he was. Eugene naturally shied away from the name Flynn Rider now, not wanting to be reminded of the person he had once been, that worse, more selfish person that Rapunzel had so effortlessly and lovingly changed, but Varian’s excitement and wrong assumption that he was _the_ Flynn Rider from the books was rather endearing and sweet, he couldn’t deny upon thinking about it more, even if it had annoyed him personally because of his past.

As for the rest, well, it was true that the machines had been dangerous, including the one testing Rapunzel’s hair that Eugene had felt himself have a heart attack every time it activated on her again. But there was clearly so much _genius_ put into them as well, from such a young boy, and he knew that Varian’s underground invention would have done nothing but help his village, if he had been able to straighten out the kinks and kept it from causing the tremors.

“…He always means well, despite the problems he’s caused. ……Until now, that is.”

“I _know_ it’s because of his father,” Cassandra cried, setting the necklace down and putting her head in her hands, “but… but I _never_ thought that he would feel the need to resort to _this_ …!”

Without thinking much about it, Eugene unconsciously reached out, resting his hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

“None of us did, not even me. …This is really all because Rapunzel couldn’t help him during the storm?”

 _“Yes,_ ” she moaned into her hands. “He came all that way to us, in the midst of all of us trying to figure out what to do; you should have _seen_ him, Eugene, he was so _distraught_ and desperate, _begging_ for Rapunzel to come with him back to his home, saying that his father was in trouble and that she was the only one who could help… I’ve never seen him so upset before. …And when Rapunzel told him she couldn’t come with him, the guards… hauled him away… I still remember the sound of him continuing to scream as they did so.”

Eugene bit his lip as the scene she described played out in his head, thinking about how hard it must have been on Rapunzel to turn him down, and how much he _knew_ it had been, from what little she had told him. Then he thought of what they had discovered in Old Corona: the spiked rocks infesting it everywhere, impaling many of the houses, and then the yellow crystal born from one of those rocks inside Varian’s lab, with… his father in it.

_If he had to see it happen…_

Anyone would break at the sight of that. To say nothing of a child.

“……Those black rocks should have been dealt with long ago,” Eugene growled, clenching his fist, his heart hurting. “Now innocent people are suffering because of them, including Rapunzel.”

“It’s my fault,” Cassandra whispered brokenly, causing Eugene to whip his head back around in surprise. She was holding the necklace in her lap again, rubbing her finger over the smooth amethyst-looking gem in a mindless motion. “Even if the rocks are affected by Rapunzel, and maybe even only exist because of her hair, _I_ was the one who showed them to her in the first place. There were only a few of them originally, in the place where they found… the flower…… Because I took Rapunzel to them, she touched them and got her now-unbreakable hair back, and the rocks started to spread everywhere, causing all of this nightmare in the first place… and now, this is what it’s led to.”

_“Now hold on just a minute!”_

Eugene reached out, taking Cassandra by the shoulders, her eyes widening in surprise at the sudden action. For the first time, he could see how tired she looked, and how much everything had been weighing on her, more than either of them had ever noticed… It made him wonder how much Varian’s betrayal hurt Rapunzel, too, underneath all of the anger she displayed recently.

This wouldn’t be the first time Rapunzel had been betrayed, though, it hurt for him to realize. But he also knew how strong she was. Cassandra was strong, too, but even so, seeing her like this… it wasn’t something Eugene had ever expected from her. And not something that he liked, either.

_…Darn you, Varian; no one is allowed to hurt the cold-blooded bird of prey but me!_

“Look, vouching for you feels unusual, difficult, and leaves a strange taste in my mouth” – at this, Cassandra smirked dryly, to his relief – “but this is as little your fault as it is Rapunzel’s. She _asked_ you to take her out that night; you were just being…… n-nice! And neither of you had any idea what those rocks would do. _None_ of us could have predicted… any of this… and I feel for the kid, I truly do, but he shouldn’t be blaming any of us for this; we’re all just as ignorant about them as he is.”

“…You’re right,” Cassandra whispered, looking down at her lap, and the necklace, again, her expression deeply pained. “……But as hurt as I am by his behavior, and as much as I didn’t expect it… I can’t _entirely_ blame him, either. I _wish_ he had come back to us for help after the storm, or at least for _comfort_ , a place to stay that wasn’t _there_ , all alone…… instead of feeling like we deserved _vengeance_ for Rapunzel being forced to turn him down on the single crucial day she had to, and concocting this ridiculous scheme that involved _using_ us to get that scroll for him, in order to use Rapunzel _more_ and _tricking_ her into allowing him to steal the flower for his own use while distracting everyone else in the castle with a mood potion, and then deciding that he’s _still_ not done with us even after all of that…”

When spoken out loud in painful detail, it was hard to ignore how wrong it all was, and Eugene knew that Cassandra knew it as well. But even so, he waited for the “but” in her speech.

“…But _we’re_ the adults in all of this! Rapunzel was _devastated_ having to deny him that day, but none of us ever thought or made the time to go see him ourselves later on, so shaken over what had happened and busy as we were… Varian may be a genius, but he’s still a _child!_ After having to witness something so _traumatizing_ , with no one there to support him… What would that do to his _mind_ , Eugene?”

She glanced back up at him, distraught.

“…He’s failed us, and it hurts… but _we_ failed _him_ first.”

Eugene said nothing in response, processing her words, his throat tight. He couldn’t deny any of what she had said; it was all true. It didn’t make the alchemist boy’s decisions right, but they could have kept him from getting to this point. Cassandra and Rapunzel obviously cared about him deeply, and although he had never quite understood it because of his own initial negative impressions that he had never managed to shake, thinking about him now, Eugene realized that he didn’t have much right to judge Varian’s actions, and that they weren’t really that surprising at all.

After all, children did stupid things when alone, with nothing, and desperate. He would know.

He reached across, taking Cassandra’s necklace, (to which she didn’t protest) and looked at it closer. It was crudely made, and the beads were wooden and nothing special, but the midnight purple stone was clearly in another league.

“Varian gave that to me at the science expo a while back; the rock is the element that he created with the invention he had there,” she said quietly and sadly, as if answering his unasked question of when she had gotten it. “He wanted me to be his assistant for his demonstration in the competition… and I agreed to it, after he said he would help me do my work for that day so that I could pull guard duty for the expo like I wanted. ……He did… so much of my chores, willingly, for _hours_ … and in the end I went back on my word to help him, because they needed a replacement to be the judge’s bodyguard, and I accepted the job. …I think you remember how the rest went.”

Cassandra smiled at him weakly, and Eugene grimaced and nodded, indeed remembering it all. He recalled thinking how impressive Varian’s invention had been, (even despite his reservations about him) before Shorty, who unfortunately had been running the machine for him, had caused a near-fatal accident that had made the judge disqualify Varian from the competition, even though it hadn’t been his fault directly. After that, the judge had messed with the contraption without Varian’s permission or knowledge, and had caused the deadly cyclone in the sky out of nowhere that luckily Rapunzel’s impromptu invention had been able to counteract.

“……That judge was a weasel,” Eugene muttered, making a face. “And so was that last woman who presented; both of them rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I know right,” Cassandra scoffed, rolling her eyes. “……I tried really hard to make it up to Varian, after, but it was still wrong of me for going back on my promise like that…… I had always known he had a ridiculous crush on me, but I didn’t realize just how _badly_ his desire to impress me was until that day, when he gave me that, and said the element he had named _cassandrium_ … and told me he wanted me to see him as someone special. And I _did_... _do!_ He's Raps' and I's friend; he's smart, kind, unique, all of which I told him at the expo ……It's not just me he wanted praise from, though, I know; he turned to me if he couldn’t impress his father, who I could tell even that first day that he wanted to make proud of him most of all.”

She looked away at the mention of Varian’s father, and Eugene held the necklace up to the light like Cassandra had earlier, so that the stone sparkled. It was so beautiful and ingenious, but somewhat held back in the overall piece of jewelry by the dullness of the beads around it.

Just like Varian.

“I guess… what we all really want most of all is to feel like we’re needed, for people to see something special in us.”

Eugene sighed.

“…Poor kid.”

They were silent for a few minutes, simply sitting together and musing on the tragedy of the current situation. It was the longest either of them had talked together without arguing, which he knew didn’t escape her, just like it didn’t him.

It felt nice, despite how sad the reason for it was.

“……With all due respect to the King,” Cassandra finally muttered, her voice low as she reiterated what Eugene had said a few minutes before, “he should have done something about those rocks a _long_ time ago. Who’s to say how long and how much he’s known about them if he felt the need to _lie_ to Rapunzel about them having been removed?”

“I’m right there with you on that one,” Eugene replied, his jaw set, as he suddenly remembered again why he had come here in the first place. “Wanting to protect Rapunzel is one thing, but ignoring the needs of the kingdom… what does he think he’s _doing_?! And now he’s gone _way_ too far with Rapunzel; because of the attack this morning, he’s locked her in her room and barred her window for her own safety!”

_“What?!”_

“She’s up there now! I tried to talk him out of it, to keep him from putting her in a tower _again_ , but he wouldn’t listen to me! In fact, that’s why I came here in the first place.”

Cassandra leaned back slightly, her face stunned as she took in his words. Eventually, her expression became grim, and she fisted her hands, and Eugene felt that familiar icy chill come over him that for the first time, he welcomed.

“…This is uncalled for. We have to do something, get her out of there.” She paused, closing her eyes and sighing deeply. “…And then we need to stop Varian, on our own, before he can do anything worse.”

“I agree.”

Eugene hesitated, watching Cassandra try to hide her continued sorrow, and he swallowed, taking a deep breath and holding the necklace he still had in his hands out to her.

“Here.”

Eyes widening, she stared at him, waiting for him to continue with what she obviously knew he was clearly about to say.

“…If you wear it when we reach him, maybe he’ll remember what you once were to him… and realize how much you still care about him.”

After a moment, Cassandra made a small sound that was the closest to a sob he knew she would probably ever come, slowly taking the necklace from him and gazing at it again wistfully. As she did, he continued speaking.

“…We might not be able to get through to him, at least not yet. Right now… he seems intent on hurting us, because of how much he feels we hurt him, and especially if he does anything worse, force is all we can use to stop him for now.”

He thought back to Rapunzel’s words to him a couple of months ago, when he had been trying to discipline those two girls into no longer being thieves, and smiled bittersweetly.

“……You and Rapunzel can’t make Varian see reason if he doesn’t want to, but you _can_ give him a chance to, and be there for him in the future until he’s ready to acknowledge his mistakes and accept your help, and your friendship.”

Eugene wanted to believe that it wouldn’t take too long. After all, this was Rapunzel they were talking about… and Cassandra.

The other held his gaze steadily for a few moments, and then slowly she smiled, genuinely, putting the necklace around her neck in one swift motion, her smile then turning into a wry smirk that he recognized all too well.

“…Man, Eugene, since when did you get so good at wise, moving, motivational, speeches? If I’m somehow not dreaming here and this _is_ reality, I can’t let anyone know I’ve been comforted by _you_ of all people.”

“You think _you’re_ dreaming? _I’m_ the one who’s been wondering this entire time what alternate world this is where you actually have feelings!” Eugene exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear smugly as he hopped up from the bed, Cassandra following suit. “And I’ve always been good at this kind of thing; you’re just never around to see it happen. Ask Rapunzel, she’ll tell you.”

“Oh _really._ ”

He waited for her to unpack the bag she had just made earlier, satisfied as she did so, knowing that the convent wouldn’t _actually_ have happened even if they _didn’t_ currently have an unhinged fourteen-year-old alchemist wreaking havoc on them all (and if she noticed that he wasn’t expressing displeasure about this, she didn’t say anything, to her credit), and discussed a plan with her, them both agreeing that Rapunzel probably already was scheming an escape plan of her own, knowing their princess like they did.

When she was ready, Cassandra stopped to look in her mirror one last time, touching the stone, her face not visible from his angle.

“…Hey, Eugene?”

“Hmm?”

“………Thanks.”

She turned to him, her expression only the slightest bit sad, mostly resolute and determined, and for the very first time, Eugene felt as if he finally, somehow, even the tiniest bit understood what it was that Rapunzel saw in this woman.

Still, he couldn’t help but savor the moment just a _little._

“…For what, pray tell, is the great _Cassandra_ thanking _moi_ for? Say it so I have it on record!”

“You know what for, you idiot.”

Cassandra punched his arm playfully as she neared him, and he pretended to rub it overdramatically, before resting his hand on her shoulder.

“…We’ll get him back, help him. He’ll be okay. I know it.” Eugene wanted to see it too, so he could one day get to know the boy better, and see him happy again. And see him make them happy.

…And if his inner child secretly wanted a chance to reread those _Flynn Rider_ books that Varian had in his possession, well, no one needed to know.

“So do I. I’ll prove to him that he still has friends in us, that he never needed to go it alone, because I owe it to Varian… after everything he did for us, for me, in the past.”

He could see the gratitude in her eyes, as well as the _“stop acting nice, Eugene, because you’re starting to scare me”_ in her expression at the same time, and he smiled back, knowing that they would always be like this, but not wanting it any other way, not anymore.

“But first,” Cassandra exclaimed, slapping him on the back and shoving him forward, “we’ve got our leader to free!”

“Ready as I’ll ever be!”


End file.
